Nobel Medicine Prize Opens Week of Awards 3 October 2011, by Igor Gedilaghine

Nobel Medicine Prize opens week of awards 3 October 2011, by Igor Gedilaghine

The 2011 Nobel season opens Monday with the Tsvangirai, Germany's ex-chanceller Helmut Kohl announcement in Stockholm of the Medicine Prize, and the European Union. to be followed over the course of a week by the awards for physics, chemistry, literature, Last year the prize went to jailed Chinese dissident economics and peace. Liu Xiaobo.

The Medicine Prize is scheduled to be announced For the other closely-watched prize, that for at 11:30 am (0930 GMT) at the earliest. literature which last year went to Peruvian-Spanish author Mario Vargas Llosa, literary circles suggest The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps the the situation in the Middle East could also play a most watched of the prestigious awards, will be role in the Swedish Academy's choice, with Syrian revealed Friday in Oslo, and the five-member poet Adonis tipped as a favourite. Norwegian Nobel committee has a record 241 nominees to choose from, the list of which is kept a In June, Adonis, whose real name is Ali Ahmed well-guarded secret. Said and who lives in France, published an open letter to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a Nobel watchers say however the nod could this Lebanese newspaper urging him to end the bloody year go to activists involved in the Arab Spring repression. uprising, which led to the overthrow of autocratic regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and rattled the Online betting site Ladbrokes tipped Adonis as the ones in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. favourite on September 30, just ahead of Swedish poet Tomas Transtroemer. If that were the case, among those mentioned as possible winners is Tunisian blogger Lina ben Kenya's Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Somalia's Nuruddin Mhenni, who chronicled her country's revolution on Farah, Hungary's Peter Nadas, Korean poet Ko Un, the Internet. Japan's Haruki Murakami, India's Vijaydan Detha and Australia's Les Murray also figure among the Another possibility is Israa Abdel Fattah of Egypt favourites for this year's Literature prize, which will and the April 6th youth Movement that she co- most probably be announced on October 6 but founded with Ahmed Maher in 2008. could come any Thursday in October.

The movement, which began on Facebook, The field is meanwhile seen as wide open for the "played a key role in maintaining the direction and prizes for Medicine, Physics and Chemistry, to be non-violent character of the uprisings in Egypt," announced on October 3, 4 and 5, although they Kristian Berg Harpviken, the head of the Peace have in the post-war period been dominated by Research Institute of Oslo, told AFP. American researchers.

He also mentioned Google executive Wael The Economics prize, which will wrap up the Ghonim, "a principled non-violence activist" who season on October 10, is meanwhile not expected was a central inspiration to the protests in Cairo's to be heavily coloured by the debt crises currently Tahrir Square. raging in Europe and the United States.

Other names circulating are Afghan human rights Nobel laureates receive 10 million Swedish kronor activist Sima Samar, Russian human rights ($1.48 million, 1.08 million euros) which can be split organisation Memorial, Liberian activist Leymah between up to three winners per prize. Gbowee, Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan

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The prizes will be handed out at formal ceremonies in Oslo and Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

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